Readin' Writin' and Racism 2010

Writing White---Redux 2010

We first wrote this piece as an article back in 2005 but it never found a home. So we posted it on our blog in September 2007 and again in November 2008 and 2009. Last fall, Virginia’s Open Letter to Oprah made the cyber-rounds, author-friend Bernice McFadden took a stance on Seg-Book-Gation, and Carleen Brice's blog Welcome White Folks and December is National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black Month, celebrated it’s first anniversary, but it’s evident things haven’t improved significantly. There’s the recent post by Laina Dawes on Blogher.com, Reading While Black or White: Do Readers Prefer Books Written by their Own and Black and Blues, by Cheri Paris Edwards. Seems we’re touching a nerve. Some react negatively-there are some truly hateful comments on Bernice McFadden’s recent Op Ed piece in the Washington Post, Black Writers in a Ghetto of the Publishing Industry’s Making, but we have new voices joining the conversation--white voices. Virginia participated in a Shewrites Radio chat yesterday about this issue and while those of us who were present (Bernice, Carleen, Martha Southgate) and vocal were not surprised to discover the audience was mostly black, Kamy Wicoff, founder of Shewrites was taken aback and wrote this post after our hour of (black) power radio: Books by Women of Color: Separated, and Not Treated Equally, Either. Speak Up, On This, She Writes! It is the opportunity to have these conversations; to have them aloud and not just with others who have similar experience that we hope will initiate a broader understanding on all sides.

For now, it seems that white readers prefer books about black people written by other white people, like Kathryn’ Stockett’s The Help, (the most recent), Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees and Chris Cleve’s Little Bee. And why are the black characters in so many of these stories caught in some kind of Antebellum, Reconstruction, Jim Crow or Civil Rights era, generally separate and unequal historically? Do the lines of demarcation lessen a kind of general uneasiness? Is it too uncomfortable to see the wide variety of ways black people exist today, and therefore easier to portray us as the “Magical Negro” -- always good, and selfless with a little noble savage thrown in for good measure? Is it simpler to write off Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey as anomalies and accept the thug/athlete/rapper as more accurate representations of black people today, and therefore more easily dismissed?

Readin’, Writin’ and Racism—Do You Want a Mirror or a Window?

When a black writer or entertainer achieves success with a wider (read white) audience, a la Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Oprah Winfrey or Terry McMillan, they are said to have cross-over appeal. Why isn’t the reverse true? When blacks watch CSI, Iron Man 3 or pick up the latest James Patterson, no one attributes that to cross-over. Is it assumed that everyone will find these diversions entertaining? That race doesn’t matter as long as it’s white? That African Americans, Mexicans, Chinese, Lakhota Sioux, Lebanese and whomever else the census separates out will “get” the storyline and generate the dollars requisite for success?

Even in one of the most racially diverse television shows, “Grey’s Anatomy”, the central character, intern Meredith Grey, is a white woman, despite the fact that series writer/producer Shonda Rhimes, is African American. Happenstance or economics? Quiet as it’s kept, in our first novel, Exposures, we “wrote white”, deciding it was the surest way to test our joint writing chops--and get published. It worked; the novel sold in two weeks. It took a lot longer to find a home for our first book with black characters. At the time we didn’t fit the established categories (we weren’t Toni or Terry—Morrison or McMillan in case you’ve been under a literary rock for the past twenty or thirty years), so many editors didn’t believe we would find an audience.

Are these situations silent testimony to the more refined racism that lives with us everyday—the kind of de facto pecking order largely unrecognized by those who perpetuate it, and unchallenged by those of us who are aware, but just grateful to be in the game? Maybe it’s not so silent. The movie “Crash” asked questions about who we are, and what we think about all those other people. There was awkward, knowing laughter in the theater when our not so secret little prejudices were laid bare. We wonder what people who watch on Blue Ray in the privacy of their own homes have to say.

Not so long ago, a White reader (one of several who identify themselves that way) emailed to say how much she enjoyed one of our books, but wondered if she was welcome to read our work since she wasn’t black. We were stunned by the question, but it spoke to the segregated reading habits that are more the norm than we would like to admit. Are we so tired of dealing with each other at work, in the supermarket, on the bus, that it’s a relief to open a book and find people with strange accents and hairdos banished from our fictional world? Or is it more insidious? Are books our mirrors, and we only look for reflections of ourselves?

Shouldn’t reading provide a window to the greater world? We read Anna Karenina without being Russian, The 100 Secret Senses without being Chinese, Catcher in the Rye without being teenaged prep school boys, Shelters of Stone without being Cro-Magnon—Anne Rice without being a vampire. We delight in Carl Hiassen without being Floridians, Sandra Cisneros with no experience of being Latinas from Chicago, understand the plight of a Nigerian girl as told by Chimamanda Adichie, never having set foot in Lagos. Since childhood, we have read thousands of books about people who didn’t look like us and found them enlightening, hilarious, heartbreaking, and know, without doubt, we are better people because of it.

Why then is it so surprising when works of fiction, save for “literary” efforts like those of Alice Walker and Edward P. Jones, which mostly recount our collective, tragic, post middle passage history, cross over? Are we to believe that as fully franchised, contemporary Americans living a variety of social, educational, and economic circumstances that our stories are so foreign as to be incomprehensible? That we share no universal human truths?

After the surprise success of Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made, (Almost 800,000 copies later, we are happy to report those who didn’t think people would get it, were wrong—at least they were then.) which featured drawings of two brown-skinned women on the cover, our publisher made a conscious effort to cross over our next book. The resulting cover was dominated by a house, flanked by a lush tree. Our three main characters were rendered the size of carpenter ants, their color indistinguishable. So, to appeal to a wider audience we had to lose face? What must we sacrifice to be palatable to the culture at large?

Some bookstores have separate African American areas. Is this to make us more comfortable in unfamiliar territory? Does this highlight our work, or let other people know they can skip this aisle? Granted, some argue that having a unique section celebrates the black experience. But are they really separate but unequal niches, a publishing ghetto with very different real estate values?

Until Waiting to Exhale made publishers understand that black people buy books, we were mostly left outside the gates. Clearly they did not learn in American history that we risked and often lost our lives to learn to read. The Exhale phenomenon is the reason many of us were given a chance. Walter Mosley reached a wider readership thanks to the endorsement of President Clinton. But is it really so hard to throw open our windows and get some fresh air? Browse a bookstore section you usually pass without Oprah to lead the way? Ask a librarian or a co-worker for a recommendation; that’s how many non-black readers found our work. You might discover a good read on an unexpected shelf—maybe gain insight into someone else, or surprisingly, yourself.

From Bernice McFadden's Blog

How amazon.com helped me to stop wishing I was a white writer...

The other night I was up watching a re-run of The Dave Chappelle Show and the opening skit resonated with me so much so, that even though I was drifting off to sleep I popped right up to fully take in the message which represented what it is we African American writers have been complaining about.

The skit started with Dave explaining that even though he says some pretty outrageous things on his show, there are many more thoughts swirling in his head that his producers and more importantly his sponsors and white audience members would find offensive - simply because he is black.

So to get around that Dave brought out a beautiful white woman, handed her a set of cue cards where he had written some of his most bizarre thoughts and she proceeded to voice those thoughts through song.

Even though the words that came from her mouth were still Dave’s thoughts and feelings, it was deemed acceptable coming from a white woman.

This is exactly what happened with Kathryn Stockett’s The Help and Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees – publishing decided that they could take these stories that were essentially stories of the Black experience and deem them acceptable titles to be marketed to black, but more importantly to the larger, whiter reading audience and not just because they were written by white women, who were writing from a place of white privilege (outside looking in) but because those white women were able to deliver stories about the black experience minus the “grit and edge” which most often brings about feelings of “white guilt.”

See the rest of this post at http://bit.ly/anXazC

An Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey (From Virginia DeBerry)

Dear Oprah:

We don't sing karaoke or dance with the stars. We have been contributing to the cultural landscape long before Jon & Kate, Britney,Rhianna and Chris or Stephanie Meyer and most of America, including you have probably never even heard of us.

We have railed against Kanye's proud pronouncement upon the publication of his 52 page book: Thank You and You're Welcome, that "I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph." Huh?

We are writers and we are in trouble. Big trouble.

I would never have imagined myself writing this with the hundreds of thousands of emails and letters the show receives, I know the chances of this one actually getting through are somewhere between slim and non-existent. But one of the mantras my best friend/business partner and I lived by in the early days, was “It’s only postage.” Now it’s not even that. So I could not find a reason not to write and hit ‘send’. Like I said--we are in trouble.

Everyone knows that Oprah is a champion of reading, that books are one of her favorite things and it is precisely because of that passion that I send this note. I’m sure you are aware that publishing, like so many industries today—especially those centered around the arts, is struggling to keep up and figure their way through the maze of new media. What I’m not sure you know is how that struggle is affecting, or more accurately disaffecting an entire segment of writers--black novelists. Not the few who live in the rarefied literary echelons—Toni Morrison, Stephen Carter, Edwidge Dandicat etc. are doing fine—they enjoy the support of the media and the "wider" (whiter) population. These struggling authors also don’t include those who now make up the largest growing segment of Af-Am writers—urban/erotica authors whose books are acquired by publishers at little expense and sold at great profit. A quick look at the Af-Am displays in bookstores will make this trend abundantly clear.

The literary marginalization that is taking place largely affects those of us in the middle-much like the economy today. There are many of us who have/had careers courtesy of Terry McMillan, we came along right after the success of Waiting to Exhale and found a warm welcome and an open door for a career we had longed for but so often found beyond our reach. Terry proved, what we had always known, that black folks read, and would buy books featuring characters they personally identify with. Not that we would stop reading all the non-black authors we supported, we would just enjoy a wider choice.

Members of our ‘class’ include among others, Tina McElroy Ansa, Bernice McFadden and Connie Briscoe. Carleen Brice, a newcomer to writing fiction-though she has written non-fiction, last year started “December is National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Someone Not Black Month.” She also created a blog and pretty funny video welcoming white people to the AA section of the book store.

For the past 20 years, Donna Grant, my writing partner, and I have been writing novels,7 in total. No Pulitzer or Nobel winners, but well crafted stories that have enlightened and entertained tens of thousands of readers. Our first “big book” Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made was published in 1997, has never been out of print, is in its fifth edition and sold over 750,000 copies, without any major advertising or endorsements.

But that was then. This is now.

And we, along with many of our “classmates” find our careers in jeopardy. (After 20 years, and at the age of 60, I personally am on the verge of throwing in towel and looking for a "real" job.) This precarious position is not because we write bad books, but because we all fall in the came category “African American Fiction” and we just aren’t selling as well as our “street-lit” sisters and brothers. What we write is women's fiction with Af-Am characters--stories of struggle and triumph, loss, coping, love, and life, learning. But we are labeled, handicapped, before we're out of the gate. Those who are expecting urban lit are disappointed, and those (white folks) who might enjoy our work because the theme might be relevant to their life (like What Doesn't Kill You, our last book about a woman who loses her job after 25 yrs), don't ever see it because it's in "that" section and they aren't going "there." We wrote a blog about this subject a few years ago and repost it every year--because, sadly, it's still relevant. (Nov 20 entry-Writing White. http://bit.ly/3isaSI)

We do our best with our craft, but get “editorial” requests to add “more grit” or “more sex” and when we don’t, can find ourselves without a publisher. This tactic has already cost us the final payment of a very lucrative contract---and a publisher. And despite exuberant praise from our editor about our new book (March 2010) “I kissed the manuscript when I finished...” we find ourselves wondering if we will get a deal for another book. We certainly know that if we were starting out in today’s climate, it is unlikely we would have ever been given a chance.

I am going to resist the urge to be pejorative about urban fiction, but it is well known that most of these books are “under-written and under-edited” and are viewed strictly as profit centers. I do question what it means when books about pimps, hos and thugs, are fast becoming the predominant image we have on display in bookstores—a kind of anti-Obama if you will. What will happen when our young people find their choices limited like they were only a couple of decades ago?

I will not ask that Oprah select a book by one of us mid-list AA authors for her book club. I will not ask her to condemn the proliferation of badly written urban lit which would likely instigate another rap/hip-hop debacle. (While I do liken it to the crack epidemic in our communities in the '80's.) But I will ask for her attention. A word or two on this subject from Oprah, Champion of Things Literary, would I believe, make a world of difference in our plight. It might even mean that we keep encouraging young writers and continue to get emails like this one we received 2 weeks ago:

Hi,
My name is Carlie and I am a writer. I have loved books my entire life but have never been as inspired to write a full novel myself, until I met you when I was in high school. Up until then, I had dreams of becoming a published author, but was afraid to step put and do more than just a collection of short stories and poetry. Not that writing those don't require equal talent, but I have found that there is something about the dedication it takes to write a full length novel that I admire. I believe it was my sophomore year when you two came to my high school (Lanier High School in Austin, TX). You did a reading of Trying... and then handed out copies that you autographed for us. I have read my copy over and over again over the years and I fall in love with the characters every time as if for the first time. I was so excited when the second book came out because it felt like a chance for me to catch up with old friends lol. I have been working on a novel and have almost completed the first manuscript. I know I still have a lot of revision ahead of me but I thought it would be nice to get some advice from someone who has inspired me on how to begin my journey into the world of publishing. I would really appreciate it if you have a few minutes to share some of your words of wisdom and advice. Thank you so much for continuing to do what you do because you give women like me hope for my own future success. Love, Carlie Dempsey

Thanks for letting me rant,
Virginia DeBerry
http://deberryandgrant.com